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A family of six staged suicide bombings at three Indonesian churches during church services on Sunday, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens.

The family – a mother and father, two daughters aged nine and 12, and two sons aged 16 and 18 – were linked to local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) which supports IS, said national police chief Tito Karnavian.

Local media reports say they may have returned from Syria, where hundreds of Indonesians have flocked in recent years to fight alongside IS.

The mother and her two daughters were wearing niqab face veils and had bombs strapped to their waists as they entered the grounds of the Kristen Indonesia Diponegoro Church and blew themselves up, said national police chief Tito Karnavian.

His sons rode motorcycles into Santa Maria church where they detonated explosives they were carrying.

A police bomb squad also safely detonated an unexploded bomb that was discovered at the Surabaya Centre Pentecostal Church.

Police said four suspected JAD members were also killed on Sunday in a shootout during raids linked to a deadly prison riot this week.

Five members of Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorism squad, and a prisoner, were killed in clashes that saw Islamist inmates take a guard hostage at a high-security jail on the outskirts of Jakarta. IS claimed responsibility.

Karnavian said Sunday’s attacks may have been revenge for the arrest of some of JAD’s leaders and for the prison crisis which eventually saw the surrender of the radical inmates.

“The incident angered them … and there were instructions from IS in Syria, so they waited for a moment to take revenge,” he said.

The Pope offered support over “the severe attack against places of worship,” while President Joko Widodo called for Indonesians to “unite against terrorism.”

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mel
Did the bishops resign in protest against the Pope's telling them off or did they resign because they failed their diocese and people and need to re'evaluate whether they should continue on within the clergy or within Church?

KieranI find it interesting that Pope St John Paul II gave us the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary because the the three others sets lacked reference to the public ministry of Jesus, which, of course is found at the heart of the Gospels. The main sources for the presence of the Lord as Irenaeus puts it...

Patricia GrahamThe communion table is not closed because of "denomination" its closed because one denomination believes the bread in the Eucharist is the "Body" of Christ the other denomination believes its only a memory so by definition you really can't take part in a celebration that you have a different belief...

Patricia GrahamThe presence of the Lord in the word has always been "offered" to all Catholics in the many prayer devotions that are waiting for Catholics to embrace and to practice on a daily basis from Monday to Saturday so to speak with Sunday and the Eucharist being the devotion of all devotions with the Word...